


this is a wild game of survival

by caffeine101



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Dialogue Heavy, Escape Room AU, Gen, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Hurt Bruce Banner, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Hurt Natasha Romanov, Hurt Nebula (Marvel), Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Peter Quill, Hurt Sam Wilson, Hurt Scott Lang, Hurt Stephen Strange, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt T'Challa (Marvel), Hurt Thor (Marvel), Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know what I'm doing any more than yall, I hope that's kinda the whole reason why I'm writing this lmao, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Temporary Character Death, Unreliable Narrator, Violence, and also violence but also for my filthy mouth expressed through these characters, but in the first chapter whoowee, but not dialogue only to be clear, deadass do not know how to tag, it's kind of weird but also like one of my only story with plot so, it's very uhhhh unique, kind of an, like a time loop, loki makes an appearance but like . . . he's still dead, look everyone gets hurt okay, not all of these guys like each other, not entirely sure what this is tbh, not sure what else to say, okay but deadass there are so many characters, probably, rated t for bad language!, really nailing that in these characters suffer, so much dialogue??? especially in the first chapter because there are so many characters, so they will be written in a bad light sometimes, that tag is super important!!, there are a lot of characters and the relationships are weird but that is on purpose okay, there's a lot of hurt to go around, these tags are a trip, this is like 50 percent plot and 50 percent excuse to hurt these guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22459165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeine101/pseuds/caffeine101
Summary: are we the hunters? or are we the prey?Thanos decides that killing off half the life in the universe doesn’t include the Avengers & Company - instead, shoving them into an endless escape room to punish them for killing his children seems like a good alternative.orHow long can the Avengers & Company survive in an endless escape room designed to test and kill each and every one of them?
Relationships: Avengers Team & Avengers Team, Bruce Banner & T'Challa & Sam Wilson & James "Bucky" Barnes & Groot & Shuri, James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Natasha Romanov & Thor & Okoye & Wanda Maximoff & Rocket Raccoon, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker & Stephen Strange, Peter Parker & Stephen Strange & Scott Lang & Drax & Nebula, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark & Stephen Strange, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Stephen Strange, Tony Stark & Steve Rogers & James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Peter Quill & Mantis
Comments: 23
Kudos: 117





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably the most amount of words I have put into a single chapter lmaoo. full disclosure I have not watched all these movies. like I watched thor ragnarok and fell asleep during thor & didn't watch thor the dark world, but I do (mostly) know what happened. also I have watched zero (0) guardians of the galaxy movies. but I have watched (and rewatched and rewatched and rewatched) infinity war so
> 
> anyway all mistakes & inaccuracies are mine bc I should have watched infinity war more times to catch the mistakes.

_”You should have gone for the head.”_

And just like that, it’s over. The sound of Thanos snapping his fingers is louder than it has any right to be, louder than the screaming and chaos from behind him, louder than the sound of Thor’s own heavy breathing and pounding heart, and he realizes that _this is it_ before the world is bathed in bright white and every sound, save for the echo of the snap still ringing in his ears, fades away. 

He expects to wake up to the glimmering and glistening walls of Valhalla - after all, if nothing else, he _knows_ he is a warrior who died in battle. And while what he wakes up to is shimmering, it isn’t the gold he had been told about in stories of Valhalla as a child. Instead, he is imprisoned in some sort of multi-faceted sphere, with as many facets as the universe has starts, the light he sees only a reflection of the too-bright, too-white lights coming from above, such as the ones in Midgardian hospitals, only much harsher.

He lets out a groan as he sits up. As far as he can tell, there are no new injuries on him, but he is missing his weapon, as well as most of his armor and cape. He squints to lessen the glare coming off every surface, bathing the entire sphere in light, and sees almost two dozen other people lying prone on the floor of the sphere, some at different angles as the sphere tilts upwards. 

He recognizes almost everyone - the “Guardians of the Galaxy” that saved him, minus the green one; all of his Avenger comrades; with Tony is a boy he has not seen before in a red and blue suit, next to him, the sorcerer he had encountered on his last trip to Earth (he thinks, with a pang, of Loki); with Steve, a man with a metal arm and a second man with red goggles, neither of which he recognizes; a group of three, all with a darker skin tone, none of which he recognizes lay beside Rhodes and a second man with what looks like a red space suit on.

None of them are moving, but if Thor is alive, then surely they are as well?

He checks anyway, when he remembers how, even if he is alive, every other person who was onboard his ship is not.

He nudges the closest to him - Tony, who is not encapsulated in his suit any longer but whose arc reactor still glows beneath his shirt - with his foot. When that fails to rouse him, he bends down and shakes him. His chest is very obviously moving, but waking everyone up and getting out of this glass (?) structure is still a priority. “Tony!” he says, remembering how the Avengers had always remarked upon how loud his “ridiculously deep, booming voice” was, especially Tony. 

Tony groans and shifts, taking his sweet time waking up, but next to him, the child shoots up immediately. “Wha-” The minute his eyes open, they are closed again with a cry of pain.

This is what rouses Tony as well, who pushes himself up and tries to use his hand to shield his eyes from the light. “Kid, what- I where-?”

“Stark,” Thor says, and Tony is finished blinking himself into adjusting to the light, and so looks up to meet his eyes. 

“Thor? Where did you come from, exactly? Did you put us here, because I thought you were the God of Thunder, not the fucking sun-”

There is more shifting from behind Thor, which he ignores in favour of answering Tony, “I did not put us here. It was, likely, Thanos himself. He had acquired the last Infinity Stone, had snapped his fingers.”

“Mr. Stark.” Unlike Tony and Thor himself, the kid next to them had yet to adjust to the light for some reason, had now buried his head in his arms and legs. “Mr. Stark, why is it so bright-?” 

“We’re in a giant disco ball, Underoos,” Tony says, before something seems to hit him. His eyes widen, and he pulls up the bottom of his shirt in one fluid motion. On his stomach is a rather gruesome stab wound, but it seems to have healed completely over. Tony frowns upon seeing this, but he drops his shirt at another groan from ‘Underoos’. “Pull the suit up,” he says, more gently than Thor had ever heard him speak. “Your suit- it should dim the light-”

“It’s not lifting,” ‘Underoos’ replies. Tony’s frown deepens, but instead of saying anything, he shoves his hand in the suit of his jacket pocket and procured one of his ever-present sunglasses. He puts them on instead of handing them to Peter, though, and says, “FRIDAY?”

Nothing happens. 

Tony doesn’t look surprised as he hands the kid the sunglasses, who puts them on with a relieved sigh and a “thank you, Mr. Stark,” and he is finally able to meet Thor’s eyes. “Oh, hey Mr. Thor - or Mr. Odinson? I’m Peter, Peter Par- whoa.” His eyes, behind the tinted frames, dart from Thor’s eyes to behind him. Thor turns to see most of those that had been unconscious had woken up and were shaking their still-asleep companions to wakefulness. 

“We’ve got the whole gang together,” Tony mumbles under his breath. “You said Tinky Winky brought us here?” 

_Tinky Winky?_ Thor frowned. “Who? Is this a foe I have yet to fight?”

“No - the purple teletubby?” _Teletubby?_

“No one knows the names of the teletubbies,” said an apologetic voice from next to Thor. He didn’t have to turn around to figure that it was Bruce - he was well acquainted with both the voice and the tone, at this point.

Tony considered Bruce for a minute, then shook his head. “Whatever. Thanos.” 

“Yes. He acquired all the Infinity Stones and had snapped his fingers. That’s all I remember. I had just-” He pauses. He had been so close, had almost won. If he had been a little smarter - Loki, surely, would have known where to aim, he had always been clever like that. “I had stabbed him, but it was not enough.”

“What do you mean, ‘it wasn’t enough’?” comes another voice, this time from behind Thor. Thor also knows this, slightly annoying, voice. Quill. “You went to get your super-duper-killing weapon, right? Why wasn’t it enough?” 

“I didn’t go for the head,” Thor says, Thanos’s voice in his head synced with the voices coming out of his mouth.

There is a crowd gathering around them, now. Those around them are picking themselves up and coming to the main hearth of conversation. Tony and Peter are on their feet now, Peter still relatively wide-eyed at all the heroes around him. He seems very young, too young. All humans seemed young, really, but this one especially.

“You didn’t go for the head?” someone else repeats. It is one of those that he didn’t recognize earlier, flanked by two women he had also not recognized. All are dressed in a style of clothing Thor has never seen before, but, somehow, all three seem to exclude an aura he recognizes from his father and mother.

“I had the axe in his chest. He was still aware enough to snap. He did not die in time,” Thor says. He really wishes they would move off-topic. He keeps reliving the same horrified realization that he was too late, and it’s very unpleasant.

Drax - or something to that effect. Perhaps Drex? - answers his prayer. “We need to get out of this thing. It looks like glass. I should just-” He aims a punch at the glass, but there is a dull _thud_ sound and Drax pulls his hand back, wincing and shaking it. “Nevermind. It’s very strong glass.” His fellow Guardians, as well as Tony, look very tired and disappointed. 

“It’s reinforced by magic,” says the sorcerer he and Loki had encountered before. 

Something in Tony seems to snap at hearing the sorcerer’s voice. “You!” 

All eyes are on the pair. “Me?” the sorcerer says, raising a single eyebrow.

“What were you playing at, huh?” Tony says. While he seemed nothing but tired and resigned earlier, now he looks full of fury, fit to breathe fire, as many animals (and some people) on Asgard were wont to do. _Had been._ They are all dead, now. It’s just him.

“What do you mean?” says the sorcerer, in a tone that implies he knows exactly what Tony is talking about.

Tony has sensed this too. “Cut the crap! Where did all of that ‘I will not hesitate to let either of you die’ shit go? The one thing you weren’t supposed to do was hand the stone to Lachy!”

“Lachy?” 

“The purple wiggle!” and even _that_ sounds furious, as ridiculous as it is (is this another pop culture reference?) 

The words sink in only once everyone takes a moment to process that Tony knows the name of the purple wiggle. The sorcerer had willingly handed the stone to Thanos? Was he one of them?

Everyone seems to bombard the sorcerer with furious questions at once. 

“What the _fuck?”_

“Wait, seriously dude? Are you sure you’re on _our_ side?” 

“So we were spending all this time trying to hide the stones and you just gave one away??”

_”I am Groot??”_

Strange doesn’t answer any of the questions, but he does look each and every one of them in the eye as he says. “It was necessary.” 

This only seems to make everyone more furious - Thor would be lying if he said he wasn’t angry, as well - before a voice from behind all the of the group says,

“Enough.”

Thor also recognizes this voice, the assured authority behind the forceful words. Steve Rogers.

And lo and behind, it is him, copycat beard still in place. Behind him are Natasha, Wanda, and the men with the metal arm and red goggles. Strangely enough, however, Tony doesn’t look at all pleased to see him. Normally, when reunited with fellow soldiers on the battlefield or off, there is reason to rejoice, as they have not passed yet. Tony only tenses up as he sees the captain. Rhodes evidently picks up on this, and he moves to stand right next to Tony, strange metals legs enveloping his, but the rest of his suit is gone. He glares and Steve and his group.

“This fighting is going to get us nowhere,” Steve says, somehow managing to send an apologetic, timid glance at Stark while keeping the same steel in his voice.

Thor knows that there has been tension between Steve and Tony in the past, but there was never outright hostility. Now, however, Tony snaps back at him. “No reason for a fight? That’s a first.”

“Tony-” Steve begins, and now, instead of all eyes being on Strange and Tony, they are on Steve and Tony. This time, instead of close to no one being in the loop, half of the gathered crowd seems to know what the tension is about. Thor doesn’t like being out of the loop. 

“No,” Tony cuts off, just as if not more firm than the captain had been earlier. “I’m not doing this with you right now.” 

Bruce has pressed his lips into a thin line. He doesn’t look as confused as Thor feels, but he doesn’t seem to be gearing up to be picking sides like many of the others seem to be. Thor moves closer in hopes of asking him to explain what’s happening - Tony and Steve don’t look like they’d be up to explaining anything right now - when the same man from earlier, with dark skin and two women on either side of him, cuts in.

“We need to find a way to get out of this sphere. Then we can argue.”

“Thanos obviously put us in here for a reason,” says the shorter, younger-looking one on his left. They look similar enough they could be siblings, or perhaps father and daughter. “So we should leave before he comes back, or does something to the ball.”

“Or one of his children does,” Natasha adds.

There is silence for a minute. “There are like twenty of us in here,” the red space-suit wearing one says. “If we all blast one of the cubes at the same time it should explode, right?” 

“Not everyone has a blaster or something like it,” a blue woman says from the back of the group. Thor hadn’t even noticed she was there.

“Yeah, maybe it’s better if we all, like, punch one of the walls at the same time,” red-goggles says.

“There’s too many of us to aim for those small facets at once,” Tony says at the same time that the sorcerer says, 

“The facets are too small. We won’t be able to punch it all at once.”

They look at each other for a split second before looking away, each looking vaguely annoyed, and, Thor thinks amusedly, with identical expressions.

“We could always have Banner Hulk out,” Steve offers.

Thor knows this is a bad idea, has seen firsthand the destruction the Hulk can create and in this sphere, it would not be good for any of the mortals around. “No,” he says. “There’s too much of a destruction risk.” Bruce nods with him, looking thankful, likely because he did not have to speak to object.

“So, Miss, uh, Witch, can try blasting it with her magic?” Peter offers.

“No, her magic is too volatile,” Tony says, frown lines deepening with every word.

“Excuse me?” Wanda hissed. “I’ve had these powers for years, I have perfect control over them-”

"Wanda," Vision says softly, looking pointedly at her hands, which have tendrils of red magic floating around them. 

Wanda notices it too, and deflates, clenching her fists once more, and the magic disappears.

The talk of magic makes him think of Loki, of the iron control that he always had over his magic, making it do whatever he wanted it to. Then thinking of Loki makes his chest hurt, so he puts a stop to it right there. He is pulled out of his thoughts just in time to watch the group of superheroes dissolve into argument, each finding someone else to debate _their_ idea with, while some, such as Bruce and Peter, stand helplessly off to the side, or otherwise looking quiet and annoyed, such as the authoritative one with the sandals, or Natasha.

Now is as good of a time to make use of his supposedly booming voice as any.

“Silence!” he says, and most everyone freezes. “We can try them all out. We have plenty of time.” 

All of them, at least, grudgingly agree to that. Tony starts them off. “Dumbledore?” he says, turning to and making a _go-on_ gesture at the sorcerer.

The sorcerer shoots him another annoyed look, before spreading his arms and closing his eyes. The red cloak settled around his shoulders lifts him up, and he takes aim at a tile just about chest level for Thor. He extends his hand towards the tile and everyone moves out of the way just in time to avoid a shock of yellow and orange magic heading directly towards the tile. Loki’s magic had always been green, Thor thinks offhandedly. 

It’s several minutes before the sorcerer lowers himself back down to the ground, looking tired. “Something about this place . . . the magic isn’t as strong here,” he pants. “I need to try harder to reach it, to make it last, to make it powerful.” 

“It’s not working anyway,” Rhodes says, ignoring Tony putting a steadying hand on the sorcerer’s shoulder in a way Thor can’t seem to match. 

“Time to blast it!” Quill practically crows, pulling out his blaster.

“If magic can’t break it open, what makes you think a gun can?” the women on the right of the sandaled man says, shooting Quill a look that says, very loudly, that she thinks he is stupid (Thor would like to stand up for his friend, but he finds that he agrees.) 

From then, many of the enhanced individuals try to hit the same facet - in case the magic had weakened it, Bruce offered - hard enough to break it. Thor takes a try as well, but it is strong enough that he can feel the pain of the punch as well, in a way that he almost never does. Peter follows him, then Steve, and the man with the metal arm (“Bucky,” apparently), then finally Drax again, When none of them can do it, it seems that many of them have lost their fighting steam.

“Now what?” the space-suited one says. 

“There has to be a way to get out of here,” Mantis says, followed by the rabbit saying,

“There’s probably no way to get out. We’ll have to wait for Thanos.” 

“What if it’s only impenetrable from the inside?” says a quiet voice. Peter.

Almost five out of ten of the heroes simply raise an eyebrow at him. Peter seems nervous, with all the scrutiny directed at him, but Tony says, “What’s up, Pete?” and he continues.

“Mr. Doctor Strange said it was enforced by magic. Well, what if it’s only on the inside. Like, if we found a way to break it from the outside . . . ?” 

“Brilliant,” the sister/daughter of the authoritative man says, grinning.

“That makes sense,” Tony says, frowning. He does a lot of that now, Thor notes offhandedly. He didn’t use to do that. Thor remembers he always used to joke, always managed to somehow be smiling at even the worse situations. He seems older now.

“We just need to find a way to break it from the outside,” Bruce finishes. 

“Great job, Pete,” Tony says to Peter this time, ruffling his hair as he does. Peter beams up at him, and slowly, Tony smiles back.

“Is there something out there we can use to break it?” Natasha says, trying to peer past the light’s reflection to see outside the sphere. “There’s a wall out there.”

“If we can force the thing to collide with the wall, we might be able to get out,” the sorcerer says, narrowing his eyes. 

“Where’s the closest wall?” Quill says, pressing his face up against the sphere, before shifting down a bit to look at another wall.

“No time,” Drax interrupts. “Just push towards any wall!” He throws himself at one of the walls. The ball barely shifts. 

“All at once,” Steve says. “We gotta line up and throw ourselves in the same direction at once.” 

For a group of people who couldn’t stop quarreling not ten minutes ago, they arrange themselves neatly very quickly, and on the captain’s countdown, they all push forward, Thor putting at much strength into his push as he could. Steve and Peter may be enhanced, but Thor was a God. 

The ball slowly tips over, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief before letting out a collective cry as the ball started to roll faster, and before Thor knew it, he’s colliding with people left and right, spinning and spinning until there’s a _crash!_ and he only has a split second to cover his face before the sphere shatters into millions of tiny pieces.

“Everyone still have their eyes?” Quill is the first to speak once everyone has picked themselves up.

“Shit,” Thor picks up from behind him as most everyone replies with some form of ‘yes’. “I broke your glasses, Mr. Stark. I’m sorry, they broke when I hit the ground-”

“Don’t worry about it, kid.”

It’s now that it hits him just how much has changed. He’s been gone for years, away from Earth, the only Midgardian he had any interaction with was Bruce. He had come back to the world in shambles, just in time to catch the middle of a battle that they lost grievously and ended in them being in whatever this place is _(and it’s your fault_ a voice in his mind whispers). But he has been gone long enough that Tony has acquired a son (with Lady Potts?), and Steve and Tony avoid each other like the plague. Too much has changed, and while he doesn’t regret saving Asgard from Hela, he regrets that it’s only after Thanos has slaughtered half the universe that he meets his old companions again.

“We’ve moved from one prison to another,” it is Wanda’s exasperated voice stretching across the silence that brings Thor back to face the reality that, one, there is nothing that he can do about that now, and, two, she’s right. The room they’re in now is significantly less bright than it was in the large sphere, likely because of the lack of glass and how the walls here are a sort of brown - stone, he thinks. There are four solid walls stretching as far as the eye can see. It is larger than the arena he had been made to fight in, perhaps four times as large. There are strange markings on the floor, forming a sort of maze on the floor. There are no doors and no walls. The ceiling seems to be emitting light, but it’s definitely solid.

“Okay, this is ridiculous,” Rhodey says, rubbing the bridge of his nose with the tips of his fingers. 

“Are you sure Thanos didn’t say anything before he snapped?” Sandals says to Thor.

“No,” he says, hesitating before saying, “Only that I should have gone for the head.” Another harsh reminder of his failure.

“Then why are we here instead of, I dunno, dead?” 

“We’re clearly in one of those Russian doll things,” the space suit man says.

“What, so we’re supposed to break out of this too?” Natasha says, while Mantis asks, confused,

“Russian doll thing?”

While Quill is explaining this to Mantis and the rest of his team (and Thor himself - clearly this is some strange Earth reference), Bucky, the metal armed one, speaks for the first time, “Even if we are, why? Wouldn’t Thanos want to get rid of us as soon as possible?”

“Okay, Mr. Share Bear,” Tony calls to the room at large in a tone Thor knows so well the nostalgia almost makes him smile. “Could you show your face, maybe, and tell us what’s going on here? Because unless this is torture as a punishment for trying to stop you or something - and, if it is, it’s a very effective punishment, being trapped in a room with these people for the rest of eternity-” he makes a sweeping motion with his hands, “- it’d be super cool to know what we’re doing here.” 

The Steve Thor remembers would have been vaguely amused, before reprimanding Tony and moving on. This Steve does nothing more than sigh disappointedly and shake his head. Even the sorcerer looks less annoyed than Steve does, and the sorcerer has an annoyed eye-roll strong enough to give Loki a run for his money.

“Great, because he’s gonna answer-” red goggles says with a roll of his eyes (not nearly as powerful as the sorcerer’s), only to be cut off by a voice that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“You are correct, Merchant of Death.”

“Speak of the devil,” red goggles mutters angrily as the woman on sandal’s right steps forward and glares at the ceiling, one hand up to shield her eyes.

“Who are you?”

“And what do you want from us?” Steve adds.

“My name is not important, only that I am a Child of Thanos. And in your futile quest to stop him from acquiring the Infinity Stones, you have killed my brethren, my siblings - too many of them. Gamora, Maw, more, and for what? To let people starve, to let them die senselessly when Thanos presents a solution, presents salvation?”

Thor can feel himself shaking, not from fear, but from _anger_ \- he was the one who killed all of Thor’s people, and he has the audacity to speak about presenting a solution? About making lives better? About salvation? “You slaughtered my people. You murdered my brother, killed everyone on my ship - almost all of whom were women and children, not warriors. You have _no_ right to speak about _salvation_ ,” he spits out the last word, wishing he could spit directly into this Child of Thanos’s face. 

Thor can feel sharp, inquisitive glances being sent this way, but he ignores it in favour of glaring at the ceiling, hoping that in some way, this Child of Thanos can feel his wrath, can sense what Thor is going to do to him if he ever, _ever_ gets his hands on him.

“A necessary sacrifice.” 

Thor had thought there was no way for him to get angrier. He was incorrect. Right now would usually be the time he felt the burn of lighting flooding through his veins, unleashed at even the slightest indication, but the only burn he feels is the rush of anger coursing through him, flushing his face and making him want to use his hands to _crush_ something-

“You are here to pay for your crimes against the Children of Thanos. You are here to suffer, and nothing more.”

“What?” the daughter/sister on her father/brother’s left says, squinting at the ceiling before the light gets to be too much for her eyes and they join Peter’s in looking elsewhere. 

There is no response from the ceiling. “Coward! Show yourself!” Thor cries, because that is exactly what he is, too afraid to show himself, hurting people from behind the scenes, nothing a _true_ warrior with any sense of honour would do. There is still no answer.

“So,” Peter begins hesitantly. “Are we just . . . stuck here? Forever, now?” 

“No,” Tony says firmly before anyone else can say anything. “We’ll figure a way to get out, Underoos. There has to be some way- Argh!” 

Tony cuts himself off as part of the ground below them suddenly lifts up, and people are shuffled and moved out of the way of what are quickly growing into floor-to-ceiling walls. The maze on the floor is suddenly a maze throughout the room, and they are all separated. 

Everyone, at once, realizes that this is not a good thing. “We need to meet up somewhere!” Steve’s voice calls.

“The center!” Bruce calls back from a different part of the maze. “We need to find the center!” 

“Peter?” Tony’s voice says, near where Steve’s voice is.

“Here, Mr. Stark!” Peter’s voice says from a third location.

“He’s with me, Stark,” says the sorcerer from near Peter.

“Oh, that’s a comfort,” Tony says, and Thor can hear him rolling his eyes. 

“Focus,” comes a voice from the same place, from the blue women from earlier, or perhaps from Wanda? 

And then Thor’s stomach drops just as his feet do as the floor disappears from under him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter was going to be longer but then I figured it would either 1) get too long and just long-winded and repetitive if I was to go through everyone's accounts of what happened in the maze or 2) include two separate events that I wanted to be in two separate chapters. so anyway here we are with a relatively shorter chapter but the next one should definitely be longer.
> 
> anyway all mistakes are mine as I am beta-less and faux-physics-full. also, this chapter required knowledge about those little plastic maze toys

The ground drops and Tony feels himself fall for only a split second before his back collides with the floor and he slides down, digging his feet into the ground to stop his descent. 

The floor - and the entire maze with it - has tilted sideways, like a table not completely level. The slope isn’t too large, but it’s not small either. Tony could probably try to climb back up if he was willing to fall back down a couple times. “What the fuck was that?”

There’s a noise of disapproval instead of an answer, and Tony’s heard that disapproval directed at him too many times to not realize that the noise is coming from Rogers, who, of course, he had to get stuck with in this hellish maze. It’s not bad enough that he and the kid got separated - the kid he was supposed to be _protecting_ for God’s sake - but he’s also stuck with the absolute last person he’d like to be stuck with right now, and that includes fucking Dumbledore or whatever the hell his name is. 

He really, really can’t catch a break. 

That doesn’t even mention the fact that they’re even here in the first place. Here to suffer for his crimes? Really? He thinks that he’s suffered enough, what with the nuke into space thing, and the constant nightmares, and the nights after nights doing nothing but building gadgets to help the team, and being tortured in a cave, and the chronic pain from the arc reactor, and the loss of JARVIS, and Obie’s betrayal, and more than that besides.

And that’s just him, who knows how much trauma everyone in this room has combined? 

So yes, he does think it’s just a _little_ unfair that they’ve been put here to just to be hurt considering they’ve already been hurt far too much.

When does he ever get what he wants, though? He has to keep pushing, to find a way out, if not for him, then for Peter. It’s with this in mind that he attempts to push himself to his feet and fails. He curses under his breath and moves to try again when-

“Tony,” his beautiful, beautiful, amazing, stupendous Rhodey says, stretching out a hand to pull him to his feet. He and his mechanical, finally fully functional, feet are already standing, and there’s nothing more comforting right now than seeing his platypus standing protectively in front of Tony, blocking him from Rogers’s view (and Rogers from Tony’s).

He takes the hand and pulls him up, squeezing it gratefully in lieu of thanks. Rhodey, as always, as always, gets it, and smiles back. He doesn’t move from his spot directly between Rogers and Tony. 

“Does anyone else hear that?” Peter’s voice says from far away - further away from where he was last time, and there’s a panicked feeling in his chest that says he needs to get up and find Peter in this maze _right now_ , who knows what might happen with Tony not there to protect him? 

“No?” a second voice comes from next to Peter. Strange. Tony might not like the guy, might not trust him with Peter _(I will not hesitate to let either of you die)_ , but he’s also seen how powerful he is firsthand, and now that there isn’t a Time Stone to protect, he feels a bit better knowing that someone powerful will be there to protect Peter (what else could the _”he’s with me, Stark,”_ mean, especially in that oddly reassuring tone?)

“It’s like . . . something’s rolling?” 

“I can hear it too,” Barnes says, just barely loud enough for Tony to hear him, somewhere across the room from Peter. And while Tony would much rather be in a group with Barnes than with Rogers - he’s come to terms with Barnes killing his parents, knows it’s not his fault, even if it took a while. Strangely enough, looking at the man who (unwillingly) killed his parents is much easier than the man that kept it from him while living under his roof and (willingly) almost killed him later. He’s pretty sure it should be the other way around, but he’s already so fucked up that this really is nothing compared to, well, everything else - he’s also glad that Peter isn’t in a group with Barnes. There’s no telling what will happen to them in here, and the chances of Barnes being hypnotized again are just a little too much for him to be comfortable with.

Tony strains his ears to hear what Barnes and Peter are hearing - he always listens to the hints Peter’s enhanced hearing bring, they’ve almost never been wrong - and everyone else who is at least somewhat aware of either Barnes’s or Peter’s enhancements also fall silent. The rest of the group follows along, and there’s dead silence in the room for a minute before everyone who isn’t enhanced can also hear the odd rolling sound, exactly how Peter described.

The ground tilts again, this time to the opposite side, and Tony lurches to the side, except this time the floor doesn’t stop tilting, angling this way and that like those small plastic maze games he used to keep himself entertained with during particularly boring classes-

It hits him a second before he sees it: _they are in the maze._

He steadies himself with a hand on the wall, standing up just in time to see the top of a supersized marble, probably larger than the Hulk, pass by them, rolling on the other side of the wall he’s leaning on, a wall which very conveniently is hiding-

“Fuck! Fuck, shit, dammit!” It’s the raccoon-esque creature that Tony had seen Quill and the rest of his space idiots speaking to before, well, this. 

“Is this some sort of game?” Thor’s voice comes, although instead of staying fixed in one place as it was last time, it’s clear that he’s running, if the patter of footsteps is any indication.

There are cries for clarification from the others before they are introduced to their very own problems, and Tony’s group is no exception. The floor keeps twisting different angles, and Tony skids on the floor and almost directly into Rogers no less than three times as their group - consisting of Rogers, a strangely quiet Quill, Tony’s wonderful Snugglebear, Mantis (is that her name?), and himself - runs from their very own supersized marble.

Tony’s mind has narrowed down as it normally does during any sort of battle. He doesn’t have his suit - it looks like the nanites have been removed from the piece of plastic on his chest, which is unnerving and leaves him feeling uncomfortably exposed - but he still has his brain, and he uses it to try and think of any way they could stop this, any way they could maybe make it out of this alive and okay and victorious-

“There has to be a way out of this maze!” Quill says, panting, next to him, full speed ahead only to slow down as the ground below them tilts forward. The ball behind them speeds up.

“No, we need to find the others,” Rogers disagrees, the opposite of Quill, looking for all the world like he’s walking through the compound for a snack. He barely reacts as the ground tilts with the curve of the wall, while Tony and Rhodey, and Quill and Mantis steady each other before running on.

“What? While running for our lives? Are you insane?” Rhodey snaps from his other side, the same time that Mantis says, 

“We will not be able to find them while we are being chased!” 

“We can’t leave anyone behind!” Rogers says, stupid _no man left behind_ policy kicking in (where was it when he was alone and dying by his hand in Siberia?)

“Look, we’re not leaving anyone behind,” Tony snaps. “No one is alone. Everyone’s with some sort of group. _Our group_ needs to find a way to survive _this_ challenge so we can survive _all of this shit!_ ”

Rogers still looks like someone forced him to swallow a lemon. Tony rolls his eyes, about to snap some more vitriol at Rogers, only for Quill to step in.

“Everyone else is fine, but we’re not about to be!” 

“Through here!” Rhodey says suddenly, turning sharply right just as the floor tilts left. He practically throws himself into the path on the right while the ball rolls left, and Tony promptly follows suit. Quill and Rogers do the same, and Mantis lands on Tony, attempting to pick himself up, as she jumps. Rogers, of course, lands on his feet. 

“There has to be a way out,” Mantis says, her panicked tone in her dreamy voice so starkly wrong. She’s looking at mostly Quill as she speaks, and Quill steps immediately into the role of leader at Mantis’s urging.

“We should go to the center. That’s the point of a maze, right?” The maze lurches to the left again, and Tony grabs on to the edge of the end of the wall closest to him as everyone else braces their feet against the angle. 

Rogers, apparently, is still trying to figure out a way to get their large group back together. Tony might be a little tempted to agree with him - he might be glad for Strange’s help, but he’d certainly rather protect Peter himself - if he didn’t know that there was no way they’d be able to find each other in the maze and escape being run over by the oversized marbles chasing them, all with no method of communication or way to know if everyone else had the same goal as they did. “We should try to find everyone else. We take this on as a group.”

Tony sends him his very best annoyed look, which is very good, after years and years of practicing it (usually to use on Rhodey, honestly, he had his press face for everyone else). “What is this, then, if not a group?” 

“Look, we might find everyone else at the center, okay?” Quill says, frustrated, obviously not knowing what he’s getting into as he disagrees with Captain America himself. “There’s no way of knowing if we’ll find everyone else in this maze, anyway.” 

Rogers narrows his eyes. “But we need to take that chance. Who knows what trouble the others will be in without us to help him - them - out?”

 _Him._ Of course, the elder wants to find his fellow elder, Barnes. 

“I don’t think they’ll absolutely need Captain America’s help getting themselves out of trouble,” Rhodey says dryly. “They’re not helpless.” 

Quill and Rogers look like they’re about to really start arguing, so Tony cuts in, to make everything worse, of course. The floor lurches again as he begins to speak, and he tries his hardest to stay steady as he makes his point.

“Maybe we shouldn’t go to the center at all,” he says, and both Quill and Rogers immediately try to interject, but Rhodey always has his back, and glares them both into submission (he’s doing a better job at remaining steady, too, somehow, which makes him look much more intimidating.) “If this is a game, why would they make the win that obvious and easy? ‘Reach the middle’?”

“Easy?” Quill says incredulously. “This is easy?” As if to prove his point, the floor jerks violently, and this time Tony stumbles straight into the wall.

“The solution is _obvious_ , I mean!” he says as he peels himself off. “What if it’s a trap, reaching the center? We should go to the end, there’s bound to be some sort of exit there, right?”

Rogers and Quill both look at him doubtfully, but Rhodey nods slowly, face screwed up as he thinks. “Normally your ideas aren’t the best-” Tony scoffs. He knows that what Rhodey says is the least of his worries when right now they’re facing what is probably going to eventually be certain death, but the sense of normalcy is comforting. “-that makes sense.” 

Quill turns to Mantis, presumably to ask her to back _him_ up, only for her eyes to be fixed on a point around the wall that Tony can’t see. Then she screams, “It’s coming!” 

Tony knows what it is immediately and so does everyone else, so everyone is quick to follow Mantis on her heels as she runs. This time, she leads the way, pressing on to the right no matter where they go and where the marble follows them (it seems hell-bent on following them now, Tony wonders if that means Thanos successfully ran over whoever he was chasing last time).

Quill is back to panting as he asks, “Wait - where are we going?”

“To the outer ring!” Mantis says over her shoulder.

Quill looks at her back, scandalised. “Mantis! I thought we were going to the middle?! Because you’re supposed to back me up?!” 

“But heading to the outer ring is the better option!” 

“Suck it, Quill," Tony says quietly, and is surprised but not upset (is actually quite pleased) when Quill hears and looks at him, offended, and mutters in an equally quiet voice. 

“Oh, shut up.”

“Wait,” Rogers cuts in before Tony can retaliate. “Can you guys hear that?”

The only thing Tony can hear is the sound of the marble gaining on them, his heart pounding in his ears, and the skid of his feet every time the floor shifts angles. Slowly, though, he can hear a group of footsteps that aren’t any of theirs, and then shouting:

“Move _faster_ , it’s gaining!” 

“I’m moving as fast as I can your highness, we’re not all supersoldiers-”

“Jesus _fuck-_ ” 

Tony realizes who it is a second before Steve calls out, “Bucky?!”

“Steve?” he says over the wall of the maze the two groups are running against.

“Yeah, and Sam Wilson, remember me?” comes the second voice.

Rogers starts to yell something else over the wall - another thing Tony is stupidly jealous of, he can’t imagine yelling anything right now, a little bit too busy trying to breathe as he runs - but T’Challa’s smoothly accented voice overpowers whatever he was about to say. “This way!” 

Their footsteps fade away, and Rogers is left yelling, “Bucky? Bucky!”

Tony honestly can’t believe the amount of times in the short amount of time they’ve been here he’s wanted to smack the captain, but thankfully, Rhodey cuts in before he can completely ruin Rogers with his words. “Guys, we kinda need to move _a lot faster.”_

And it’s true. The slope is tilted downwards the direction they’re running, and as they run forward, the slope tilts forward even more causing the ball to go faster, but them to go slower, lest they fall down the rapidly steeping slope.

“Look, there is an exit!” Mantis says, pointing down the aisle they’re about to be crushed flat in. 

At the end of the hall they’re in, there’s a dead end, but a small gap at the bottom of it, big enough to slide through if Tony was on his stomach, although it wouldn’t be too tight of a squeeze for him - maybe for Rogers, though.

Quill looks forward at the gap, then back at the ball which is nearly on top of them by now, before yelling, “Slide!” at them, and throwing himself on his stomach. The slope is _still_ getting steeper, so he slides down easily, despite the friction. 

Rogers lets out a resigned sigh, before copying Quill’s movement. He looks ridiculous, and so do Rhodey and Mantis when they follow suit. Tony’s _not_ doing that (he wants to say it’s because Tony Stark has a better sense of style than that, but it’s really because the arc reactor, although now nothing but a nano particle housing unit, could still cause some damage to his fragile chest). Instead, he leans himself down on his back and pushes himself forward, and he slides down easily as the slope is almost vertical now, as if whoever is controlling this damn maze is willing the ball to move faster before they disappear out of it’s reach (that’s likely exactly what is happening.)

Being round, the marble would have gotten to them already had the distance between the marble and them not been so large, and safety not been so close. Quill and Rogers have already disappeared (Rogers with a bit of struggle, Tony noted with some amount of satisfaction). Rhodey and Mantis disappear as he watches, and seconds after he slips through the exit himself, the ball collides with the wall with a _thud!_

Tony assumes that the maze recalibrates itself to go chase someone else, but he can’t say for sure, because the exit has deposited them on a much lower, but thankfully 100% horizontal surface. Tony peels himself off the floor, thankful he hadn’t crushed anyone under him (he can’t say the same for Mantis, fall pillowed by the glorious Captain America). 

The room they’re in is completely bare except for a single lightbulb hanging down from the ceiling, and a door on the wall opposite the one they had entered from - although, now that Tony looks back on it, the small gap through which they had fallen is sealed. No going back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did I rip this maze thingy off the book of life, a movie I watched in the 6th grade? yeah.
> 
> hopefully it made sense, I tried to describe it as best as I could but I feel like it reads really weird. drop me a comment if none of this made sense and I need to rewrite it immediately (or, conversely, if it read normally and I do not need to rewrite it immediately). 
> 
> also I swear I don't usually hate steve this much, but since this is tony's pov (and since I really would probably never forgive someone that did all the shit that steve did to tony to me), I feel like this is currently a correct portrayal of tony's feelings towards steve (LMAO especially after steve's dumbass apology that could barely count as an apology like that bitch needs to learn how to apologize and not start talking about his own fuckin self lmao). 
> 
> anyway have a great rest of the 24 hour cycle yall are in!

**Author's Note:**

> that was tooo much dialogue but dw they get separated later so there's not as much dialogue and the scene isn't as chaotic lmao. I said that in the tags but who KNOWS how many people actually read what I put in that shitshow.
> 
> I feel like the names are kinda confusing for those that thor doesn't know but I didn't really know what else to do so drop me a comment if you need me to clarify a name lmao I made them as obvious as possible but idk it might not have gone through.
> 
> also I don't?? like? wanda??? so if you can see that in my writing (you probably can) uh . . . oops. 
> 
> anyway hope you guys enjoyed (and understood)!


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